Doby Doc: Part
One of FourNortheastern Nevada and Las Vegas (1890-1979)

If
there was ever an honest to goodness died in the wool Western character,
Doby Doc fills the bill. Many of his antics were unbelievable but there
were eyewitnesses and victims who can tell. A great deal of gray area surrounded
his deals.

Robert F. Caudill was his real name but most everyone
knew him as Doby Doc. His philosophy boiled down to him getting away with
thievery and not getting caught. That made it all okay. We're not talking
about simple everyday theft. We mean legendary stealing.

"Gawd helps those who help themselves." -
Doby Doc.

Sometime after the Eureka-Nevada Railway (formerly
the Eureka and Palisade Railroad) narrow gauge closed down, Doby took possession
of an engine and other rolling stock. Enough to make up a whole train.
Now, that's big time theft.

Doc stole an ore car and rails out of the Dexter
mine in Tuscarora to build a dam. While he was busy pulling track and shoving
rails down to Lawrence Jackson to load on a wagon, Constable George Gilmore
walked up and began questioning Jackson. About the same time, Doc yelled
down and asked what was going on down there.

"I might have known it was you, Doc." Gilmore
called back.

He climbed up the hill to the mine where he and
Doc talked for a few minutes. Doby shouted to Lawrence to go ahead and
load up.

Doc always claimed to have close relationships
with law enforcement officials.

The dam was across the Little Owyhee River and
Doc was sighting down a wire with a level. He was leaning against a rock
when Jackson walked up and saw a rattlesnake by Doc's arm. Lawrence grabbed
a shovel and killed the snake. Doc didn't say anything about the rattler
and continued working. Later in the afternoon, Jackson noticed that Doc
was spread eagled under the scaffold in the hot sun. He had been bitten.
Jackson said that Doc told him what do, even using the suction cup himself
to draw out the venom. He was very sick for a couple of days, then went
back to work. All their labor was for naught. When the two were away one
day, the dam was blown up. Nearby ranchers and Indians hadn't been too
enthusiastic about the project.

Doc later made off with the Tuscarora jail house.
He added shackles on one wall and told people that they had held some of
the West's most despicable lawbreakers in the jail. Tuscarorans knew that
was a bald-faced lie. They remembered seeing only a few drunks in the jailhouse
and they weren't chained to the wall.

Somewhere along the way, the North Fork schoolhouse
and Elko's Chinese Joss house also ended up in Doc's collection.

Elko's Chinese Joss House. When
asked for a bill of sale, Doby said it was a verbal deal. Northeastern
Nevada Museum Archives, Elko.

Joe Bell remembered, "Doc and his workers passed
a truck loaded with pipe that had broken down on the highway.

Doby commented, 'I wonder what my pipe
is doing here?'

He had his crew offload the pipe onto his truck.
The filched pipe was used to construct pig pens for Doby."

Joe Mendive said Doby exercised an ingenious method
of doing business with the air base at Wendover, Utah during World War
II. He picked up the garbage from the base, fed it to his pigs, then sold
the hogs to the airfield.

During World War II, Doby had a warehouse of rationed
tires. Tire by tire, not allotted legally, the inventory dwindled away
until only a few remained. That's when the warehouse caught fire and Doc
was right there helping the firefighters. Every time there was a fire,
Doc put a keg of whiskey in his car and headed for the blaze. He gave all
the firemen a free drink.

Doby submitted a claim to his insurance company
saying hundreds of tires stored there were lost in the fire.

A local insurance agent once tried to sell Doc
a cyclone policy. Doby told him, "I'd rather have fire insurance, I can't
start a cyclone."

Doby had a "night crew" for his forages in the
dark. A rancher ordered a load of lodge poles to build a fence. Perhaps
it was a convenient event but a truck loaded with lodge poles broke down
on Emigrant Pass and the driver walked to a nearby ranch for help. While
he was away from the truck, the night crew drove their truck alongside
the disabled vehicle. They loaded up the poles and delivered them to the
rancher the next day.

"The El Rancho Vegas and Hotel Last Frontier: Strip Pioneers,"
by David G. Schwartz, Ph.D., University of Nevada at Las Vegas, July 8,
2000, Gambling Research - The Electronic Journal of Gambling Issues.

"A Retrospective - Benny Binion Speaks," Internet site,
World
Series of Poker, University of Nevada at Las Vegas.